Stone pleads not guilty to Mueller’s charges

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s longtime adviser Roger Stone pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of making false statements, tampering with a witness, and obstructing special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Mueller’s office and the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., accuse Stone of lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange through intermediaries. The indictment says that while working on the Trump campaign, Stone tried to discover WikiLeaks’ plans for releasing stolen documents and emails damaging to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Stone is not accused of coordinating with Russia or WikiLeaks to release the emails but of misleading lawmakers about his contacts with the organization and attempting to intimidate another witness. FBI agents arrested Stone on Friday. He was released on a $250,000 bond and is due to appear in court again on Friday before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who also presided over former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s case in Washington. Stone did not make a public statement after leaving court Tuesday, but he denied all of the charges against him in a television interview Sunday.